Dear sweet, amazing, patient, loving, incredible, to kind, beautiful, most wonderful, perfect, and my very most favorite in the world Mother,
Hi mom! No worries mother we are always safe! We have the Lord with us and don't forget what President Harbertson said when he set me apart! We have no need to fear. :) So in light of all the stupid people we have been teaching, I reread Elder Christofferson's conference talk this past October. It was beautiful. I loved it. There is one part in particular where he says, " It would mock the Savior’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross for us to expect that He should transform us into angelic beings with no real effort on our part. Rather, we seek His grace to complement and reward our most diligent efforts." Yeah, I wrote it down and have it in my scriptures because I love it so much. Isn't that a beautiful quote. I love it. I wish everyone could understand that. I think you are right mom, Satan is so real and so persuasive. Sometimes I can almost just see him standing there laughing at all the people he has persuaded to believe in his false teachings. I think it makes him so happy to see all these people rejecting the truth because they think what he has taught them is true. These people have been taught that you shouldn't ask God whether or not things are true. If it's in the Bible, you should just believe it. You should never stop and ask God if it's true. You just need to believe it. So they think it is wrong for us to ask if the Book of Mormon is true....thank you for that one Satan! Isn't he just a pain? But it's ok President Sagers is always saying the work of the Lord is never frustrated, only we are. And boy is that true. Sometimes I get so frustrated with people. I have to stop myself and remember that it's ok because the Lord will preprare a way and I can't control others agency...although it's tempting at times :)
Mom I want to tell you how incredible I think you are. Sometimes when I think about you it just makes me feel so overwhelmed with gratitude that you are my mother. How lucky am I to have you! I don't know what, but I must have done something pretty good for God to have given me the blessing of having you as my mother. I am sorry that life is a little stressful for you right now. I wish there was some way I could be more helpful. I will write a letter to that cute little sister of mine. The funny thing is I feel like I was like that in high school. Oh high school, I was so stupid. haha I am grateful for all the learning opportunities I had there.....But she needs to be nice to you at least! You're her mom. I think she just might not realize all the amazing things you do for her. And mother anything from you is special to me! So don't stress about me or my stuff.
I am so sad Dad had to conduct a funeral. That makes me so sad for the Hefners (I can't spell their last name) I hope they are ok. It just breaks my heart. What a hard time to lose your dad/husband. I will keep them in my prayers since that is the only thing I really can do. I wish I could do more.
I am glad that we are making it a tradition to go give lunches to the homeless. I think that is so neat. It really helps focus us on the real reason for the season. Being with our families and giving. I am with you mom I wish I could handle every situation the way the Savior would. But mother I think you are way more Christ-like then you give yourself credit for. The Savior's whole life was given in service. He gave to everyone and never stopped to think of Himself. I think you are just like that mom. You give so much and never stop to think of yourself. I can't think of a moment when you weren't concerned for others. I wish that I could be a little more like you. You are a perfect example to me of striving to be more like the Savior.
Well as for crazy stories here...of course we have some! Ok so we went on exchange this week and I was able to travel to the great metropolitan of Justin....population more cows than people! It was great. I loved it! So we went to visit one of the sisters' investigators. And on the way there Sister Reynolds, who I was with, was telling me all about how great this lady was. So I was very excited to meet her...unfortunately, I think I might be bad luck. Because when we got there she told us the more she read the more she felt like she didn't need to be a part of any denomination. So we are talking to her and Sister Reynolds is talking about the importance of the Book of Mormon (since she hadn't been reading!) So Sister Reynolds asks her, "Do you know what a keystone is?" The ladies response.... "a beer!!" hahahahahahaha! Sister Reynolds, "Wrong kind of keystone." Yep....that was great. I hope she gets baptized though.
Ummm...I feel like we had more adventures, but they aren't coming to me! Lets see, I found a popcorn popper in our apartment so I cleaned it up, bought some popcorn kernels, and last night after planning we watched Joy to the World and had homemade pop corn. It was pretty fun!
We taught our investigator Boo yesterday. Man. I had an epiphany about him today, so hopefully by next week I will be able to tell you he was baptized. We are aiming for this weekend. That was the day he picked, but yesterday he told us he still hasn't gotten his answer and if he doesn't have that or a job by Wednesday, he is packing up and leaving for Arkansas on Thursday. We are praying for a miracle. But it will come. I know it will. Him and his girlfriend are so funny. They crack me up. I love teaching them. Poor girlfriend had another member sit her down and tell her all about her experience with having her boyfriend take the lessons. She said he accepted it and got baptized and they were married in the temple. (Here girlfriend is happy. She's like "oh man it will work out!") Then member girl keeps going on and tells a dreadful story about how her boyfriend then resented her for making him join the church, cheated on her, and then left her. Wow....girlfriend was really grateful for that story.
Well, I can't think of anything else exciting to tell you. We are just working. It is pretty fun. Oh funny story, so one morning we are running out to catch the bus and it zooms right past our drive way. Yeah it was just like in the movie. So we had to regroup and shift our plans to wait for the next bus. So we go out, do some other stuff, and then head back to the bus stop. While we are walking there I start teasing Sister Lounsbury about us missing the bus for the second time. So we start teasing about how if we miss the bus, we are giving up the tags, going back inside, and going to bed! Then Sister Lounsbury comes back with, "That's it, if we miss the bus again we are calling up guiltless and telling him to meet us at Lucky Louis!!" (Lucky Louis would be one of the bars behind our house.) I started laughing so hard!! That came out of left field!! Sometimes she comes out with these things that are so unexpected! It kills me. I am like, where did that come from? Well guess what, we made the bus. So we didn't throw our tags down and meet guiltless at Lucky Louis. You still have a faithful missionary. Later on we were talking about it. I was like, even if we did do that we would walk in there and be like, "Ummmm can we have water?!"
Well mother that's it for my disturbing stories! Thanks so much for all that you do! I think you are the most amazing mother in the world. I love you more than anything!
I think you are the best. And P.S. how long are Dave and JaRelle living with you for?
Loves hugs and kisses,
love your favorite missionary Sister Bailey
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